had seen him frequently, and knew his worth in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, her husband. From the time that the corpse was shrouded, and taken to an upper chamber, it lay upon a bed till the time of burial, and was either in greater or less state, according to circumstances. If poor, it lay upon a plain bed, in an open coffin or bier; but if rich,on a magnificent bed, and in a magnificent coffin, open to the inspection of all who chose to visit it." known to the queen his mother, who as the order of nature shall require.” At a burial none saluted each other, and when they retired, then began the standings and sittings, as they were called, by which the company comforted the relations. The number of persons which composed the minimum in this duty was ten; but it might be as many more as pleased. The common number consisted of all the company, and the custom was, at each sitting and standing, for the relations to sit, and the company to stand round them,and weep aloud. Between the grave and the house were seven of these sittings and standings, and they might not be nearer each other than what could contain four cabs of seed, which was fixed to be thirtythree cubits and two hand breadths broad, by fifty cubits long, or, as others explain it, the distance between them was regulated by circumstances, but the space allowed them to stand on was of that extent, that they might not be interrupted by the persons who passed. At the funeral "When come to the sepulchre, they said, "Blessed be God, who formed thee, fed thee, preserved thee, and has taken away thy life. O dead! He knows the number of thy members, and shall one day restore thy life. Blessed be he who takes away life and restores it." They then placed the coffin on the ground, walked round it seven times, repeated a prayer,and sometimes an oration, recounting his virtues: the relations threw a handful of earth upon the bier, and in places where burial was used after the present manner of inhumation, they filled up the grave, consigning the dust of their relation to the dust of death. Coffins were not in general use in Judea, nor are they general even at present in the East. They were very ancient, indeed, in Egypt among the great, and were made of sycamore wood, or of a kind of pasteboard, formed by folding and gluing cloth together a number of times, which were curiously plastered, and then painted with hieroglyphics. But in Judea they seem to have been contented with wrapping the body closely in spices, and carrying it to the grave, like the widow of Nain's son, in a bier, from whence it was taken to be laid in a sepulchre; or, if poor, it was tumbled into the grave, and the bier brought back for further use. Hence a coffin to Joseph was looked upon as an honour.-Before leaving the churchyard, the modern Jews each pluck up three handfuls of grass, and throwing behind them say, 66 They shall flourish like the grass of the earth." They also, in some places, throw dust on their heads, and say, "We shall follow thee The entertainment of the company invited to the funeral did not precede, but follow the solemnity. Among the heathen it was over or around the grave, but the Jews had it at home. This entertainment was commonly liberal :... they drank two cups of wine before it, five while eating, and three after; at least they had the offer of so many. But as this implied greater abundance than was in the power of many to give, the want was supplied by the liberality of their neighbours, both as a mark of sympathy, and in the expectation that they would return the compliment when themselves should be visited with a similar affliction." The passage to which we have above alluded relates to the eclipse at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. "This darkness was not confined to Judea, for we read of a heathen philosopher, in a distant land, who on seeing it, and knowing that it could not be occasioned by an eclipse, exclaimed, "Either the God of nature suffers, or the frame of the world is dissolving." I shall conclude the article with an extract from the Tracts of Mr.James Fergusson, well known for his popular wri tings on various branches of Natural Philosophy. "I find by calculation," says he, "that the only passover full moon, which fell on a Friday from the twentieth year after our Saviour's birth to the fortieth, was in the 4764th year of the Julian period, which was the thirty-third year of his age, reckoning from the beginning of the year next after that of his birth, according to the vulgar æra; and the said passover full moon was on the third day of April. Phlegon informs us, tha in the 202d Olympiad, or 4764th year of the Julian period, there was an eclipse the same as this mentioned here, which could be no other than this; for an ordinary one never totally hides the sun from any one part of the earth above four minutes. Besides it must have been miraculous, because no eclipse ever happens at full moon, it being at that time in the opposite side of the heavens." One is pleased to hear the sentiments of a person so well qualified to judge." We finish as we began, with recommending this book as a sensible, useful, and sound compilation, well calculated to please the grave and inform the general reader. From the London Time's Telescope. OUTLINES OF ENTOMOLOGY. If we talk of a stone, of a gnat, or of a bee, our discourse is a sort of demonstration of the power of him who formed them: for the wisdom of the workman generally manifests itself in what is most minute.He who hath stretched out the heavens, and who hath hollowed the bed of the ocean, is the same who hath pierced the sting of the bee to form a passage for its poison. In the vast and the minute we see The unambiguous footsteps of the God ST. BASIL. COWPER. ENTOMOLOGY is a science that main there entirely the earth swarms conducts us into the most extensive and most populous province of the whole empire of Nature. For while quadrupeds are, for the most part, confined to land, and fishes to water; while birds though equally capable of assuming earth and air as their natural range, know little more of water than its mere surface; insects, in inoumerable multitudes, are traced through each of these elements, as their allotted residence, and are provided with an astonishing diversity of powers to fit them for such opposite habitations. There is,perpaps, hardly a plant that does not furnish nourishment and a habitation to several insects; while many, as the oak for example, afford a retreat for some hundreds of different species. Plants, however, are far from being the only abode of insects; vast numbers reside upon the larger animals, whose juices they continually suck; while many live upon and devour others of their own order. Infinite numbers spend a part of their lives in the water; others re3B ATHENEUM VOL. 7. and the air teems with multitudes too small for the human eye to observe, and too numerous for the imagination to conceive! Entomology, like every other branch of natural history, claims it as its prerogative to demonstrate the existence and perfections of that Almighty Power which produced and governs the universe. It is one chapter in the history of creation, and naturally leads every intelligent mind to the CREATOR; for there are no proofs of his existence more level to the apprehension of all, than those which this chapter offers to the understanding. In an insect, or a flower. Such microscopic proofs of skill and power, As hid from ages past, God now displays, To combat atheists with in modern days. The manner in which entomology has too frequently been studied, and the extremes into which men, according to their different capacities and tastes, have fallen, have excited a derision against the science, which a proper de gree of discernment would have directed against the foibles alone of those who have thus studied it. While the systems of some naturalists contain only a dry repetition of shades, colours, and shapes of different insects, without entering into the more interesting and animated description of their manners, those of others, as injudiciously, ascribe to them functions, and a degree of intelligence of which they are incapable. By the former the imagination is fatigued and disgusted with a constant repetition of the same images. By the romantic air of the latter, the mind is led into distrust with regard to the truth of the whole narrative, and to doubt of those facts which are well established and certain. Hence the study of Entomology has been deemed by many an occupation the most useless and frivolous in which the human mind can be engaged. Hence too, from a fear of prostituting their talents, many have been deterred from contemplating the wonders displayed by Nature, in a kingdom of animals the most numerous, diversified, and splendidly adorned, of any on the face of the globe; and thus have deprived themselves of views of the power and munificence of the AuTHOR OF NATURE, in some respects the most striking and interesting that can be presented to the mind of man.* 'Insects indeed' (observe two elegant modern writers,) appear to have been Nature's favourite productions, in which to manifest her power and skill, she has combined and concentrated almost all that is either beautiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious and singular, in every other class and order of her children. To these, her valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate touch and highest finish of her pencil. Numbers she has armed with glittering mail, which reflects a lustre like that of burnished metals; in others she lights up the dazzling radiance of polished gems. Some she It does not become a reasonable man, says Aristotle, capriciously to blame the study of insects nor to take a distaste at it, from the trouble it occasions. Nothing in nature is mean; every thing is sublime, every thing worthy of admiration. has decked with what looks like liquid drops, or plates of gold and silver; or with scales or piles, which mimic the colour and emit the ray of the same precious metals. Some exhibit a rude exterior like stones in their native state, while others represent their smooth and shining face after they have been submitted to the tool of the polisher; others, again, like so many pigmy Atlases, bearing on their backs a microcosm, by the rugged and various elevations and depressions on their tuberculated crust, present to the eye of the beholder no inapt imitation of the unequal surface of the earth, now horrid with misshapen rocks, ridges, and precipicesnow swelling into hills and mountains, and now sinking into valleys, glens, and caves; while not a few are covered with branching spines, which fancy may form into a forest of trees.* What numbers vie with the charming offspring of Flora in various beauties! some in the delicacy and variety of their colours, colours not like those of flowers, evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving their subject, and adorning it as much after death as they did when it was alive; others, again, in the veining and texture of their wings; and others in the rich cottony down that clothes them. To such perfection, indeed, has Nature in them carried her mimetic art, that you would declare, upon beholding some insects, that they had robbed the trees of their leaves to form for themselves artificial wings, so exactly do they resemble them in their form, substance, and vascular structure; some representing green leaves, and others those that Myriads of creatures (each too nicely small A world of beauties! that thro' all their frame are dry and withered. Nay, sometimes times in the covering of their bodies. this mimicry is so exquisite, that you We admire with reason the coats of would mistake the whole insect for a quadrupeds, whether their skins be covportion of the branching spray of a tree.* ered with pile, or wool, or fur, yet are No mean beauty in some plants arises not perhaps aware that a vast variety of from the fluting and punctuation of their insects are clothed with all these kinds stems and leaves,and a similar ornament of hair, but infinitely finer and more conspicuously distinguishes numerous silky in texture, more brilliant and deliinsects, which also imitate with multiform cate in colour, and more variously shavariety, as may particularly be seen in ded, than what any other animals can the caterpillars of many species of the pretend to. Nor has nature been lavish butterfly tribe (papilionida), the spines only in the apparel and ornament of and prickles which are given as a noli these privileged tribes; in other respects me taugere armour to several vegetable she has been equally unsparing of her productions. favours. To some she has given fins like those of a fish, or a beak resembling that of birds; to others horns, nearly the counterparts of those of various quadrupeds. The bull, the stag, the rhinoceros, and even the hitherto vainly sought for unicorn, have in this respect many representatives amongst insects. One is armed with tusks not unlike those of the elephant; another is bristled with spines, as the porcupine and hedge-bog with quills; a third is an armadillo in miniature; the disproportioned hind legs of the kangaroo give a most grotesque appearance to a fourth; and the threatening head of the snake is found in a fifth.'* 'In fishes, the lucid scales of varied hue that cover and defend them are universally admired, and esteemed their peculiar ornament; but place a butterfly's wing under a microscope +, that avenue to unseen glories in new worlds, and you will discover that nature has endowed the most numerous of the insect tribes with the same privilege, multiplying in them the forms, and diversifying the colouring of this kind of clothing beyond all parallel. The rich and velvet tints of the plumage of birds are not superior to what the curious observ. er may discover in a variety of lepidoptera; and those many-coloured eyes which deck so gloriously the peacock's tail are imitated with success by one of our most common butterflies.‡ Feathers are thought to be peculiar to birds; but insects often imitate them in their antena, wings, and even some • Hence the common names of some of the genus Mantis, the walking-leaf and walking-stiek. + The polished glass, whose small convex J. Phillips. To those even who derive but- little pleasure from the pursuits and studies of a liberal mind, and who feel but little satisfaction in any employment unattended with immediate profit, the researches of the Entomologist are not without their use. Had the operations of the silk-worm never been examined, how could men have availed themselves of the labours of an insect that administers * Kirby and Spence's Entomology, vol. i, p. 7. et seq., the most pleasing and instructive book on insects that has appeared for a long time. The third volume may be shortly expected. Nor power alone confessed in grandeur kes, A living world, thy failing sight confounds! so profusely to our splendour and luxuries? It was not to the unobserving that it first occurred, that the toil of the silk-worm might be converted into a considerable article of commerce, and might give rise to many arts, and afford subsistence to thousands, of manufacturers. In the same manner, wax and honey enter into the articles of commerce and add to our enjoyments. It cannot therefore be denied, that those naturalists were profitably employed who first observed the industry of the bee; who brought the insect from its native woods, introduced it into our gardens, and by domesticating it, have rendered it subservient to our pleasures. The Chinese, whose progress in many of the arts is superior to that of any other nation, avail themselves of the labours of certain insects in procuring a rich dye, and an elegant varnish, which is provided by a certain species of winged ant. The celebrated purple dye of the ancients was the produce of a small species of shell-fish; and we are told by Pliny, that the discovery of its virtue was occasioned by a dog, who, in eating the fish, had dyed his ears with that beautiful colour. It seems probable that the antients were capable, from the shells of insects, of communicating to their stuffs many beautiful shades of scarlet with which we are unacquainted; and it is not unlikely that we have also some rich tints of that colour which they wanted. It is certain that our finest reds are furnished by insects of which they were ignorant. Cochineal, the extensive and profitable uses of which have been long estimated, is now known universally to be an insect which is propagated with care, and in vast numbers, in the kingdom of Mexico. The kermes or grain of scarlet, which was formerly imagined to be one of the galls or excressenses that are seen on shrubs, is now understood to be an insect which attaches itself in that form to a species of the oak. The medical uses of certain insects are far from being inconsiderable; and to these purposes they have been long applied, perhaps more frequently,and with better effect than at present. The valuable purposes to which the Spanish fly has been made subservient, will alone vindicate the utility of those researches which have been made concerning this part of the animal kingdom. There are, however, other uses to which other insects have been applied, and that from the most remote antiquity, which appear of a still more singular nature, Before the times of Theophrastus and Pliny, certain kinds of them were employed in ripening the figs throughout the Islands of the Archipelago; and it appears that the same practice still subsists among the present inhabitants of these islands. There are two kinds of figs cultivated around the Mediterranean; the wild and the domestic. The former produces fruit several times in the year; and in it are deposited the eggs of insects which are soon converted into larves. It is by an artificial process of the same kind that the domestic fig is brought to maturity, which would otherwise drop from the tree in an unripe state. During the months of June and July, the peasants of these delightful climes are busily employed in collecting such of the wild figs as abound most with these insects, and in placing them near the cultivated fig, that they may deposit their eggs, and co-operate with the climate in bringing it to maturity. Similar purposes might probably be served by a judicious application of insects to fruit in more northerly climates, were we acquainted with the proper species. Those prunes, pears, and apples which are first ripe, are commonly found penetrated by worms. It is highly probable that the whole advantage resulting from this process of caprification, as it is called, consists in the putrescent disposition which is here. by produced, and which is always accompanied with an evolution or secretion of saccharine matter. But there are other inducements to the study of insects, of a nature totally different, yet not less personal; inducements, founded not on any hope of advantage to be derived from these animals, but of alleviating or preventing the numerous mischiefs they occasion. |
